Ohio University to play Ohio State in 2008

[Steve19]

I was one of those hippie musicians playing Athens back in the 70s. Good people. Mr. Magoo's. Good memories, except geez I sucked as a musician. That was a pretty cool time and Ohio University had a lot going for it. I think kids have a good experience there, so in that respect I agree with our newbie.

On the other hand, let's not fool ourselves. Even back then there was this "small man" chip on some folks shoulders down there about Ohio State. Whenever the objective evidence is put on the table, the latest edition of Baghdad Bob tells us how rankings don't count. Then, in the next breath, and let's not convict our newbie of something he did not say, we get this crap about the low academic standards at A&M.

Just the facts put on the table in the last few posts in this thread should be enough to provide anyone who spews such rubbish out of ignorance with enough evidence to stop it.

I think that the truth is that most folks on BP have a lot of respect for anyone who graduates from any of Ohio's state universities. I know I do. However, just because I think it is irrelevant to run about spouting how superior Ohio State is to the other universities, doesn't mean that I can't read the objective evidence and conclude that it is.

The point is: What is gained by Ohioans tearing down other Ohioans?

 

[sandgk]

At least they're 2-0 all-time against Deaf & Dumb Institute. I shit you not, check here...

I'm speechless ...

He has an audience, ok, a small audience, but an audience who want to hear the crap he is spilling.

I'm sorry, with all due respect, Ohio University is not a patch on Ohio State.

World Top 500:
Ohio State #61, University of Cape Town #201, Ohio Univerity unranked.
Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2007

I'm just glad that the six Universities associated with our side of the extended family:

Ohio State, University of Bristol, University of Leeds, Univ Coll London, CMU and (ahem) The University of Cambridge

are all ranked higher than the University of Notre Dame (WR - 203-204).

 

[Mike80]

I was one of those hippie musicians playing Athens back in the 70s. Good people. Mr. Magoo's. Good memories, except geez I sucked as a musician. That was a pretty cool time and Ohio University had a lot going for it. I think kids have a good experience there, so in that respect I agree with our newbie.

The point is: What is gained by Ohioans tearing down other Ohioans?

I was being (mostly) facetious

 

[Steve19]

I was being (mostly) facetious

Whoopsie! My comment wasn't a negative response to yours, buckeyeMike. I hope you didn't take it that way.

What I was querying was why these guys make comments about other Ohioans? I have been amazed by that site. It's not just a delusional derision about Ohio State sports, they are more delusional about the quality of Ohio State's education product.

 

[OZoner]

Whenever the objective evidence is put on the table, the latest edition of Baghdad Bob tells us how rankings don't count. Then, in the next breath, and let's not convict our newbie of something he did not say, we get this crap about the low academic standards at A&M.

Wait, wait, I didn't say the rankings don't matter. I said I don't care about them, and that's something else entirely. The rankings are something that the schools are going to use them for attracting students. That's fine. I just don't need or use them to justify my attending OU, and I'm not about to play that game with schools that we do rank higher than.

Ohio State is ranked higher than Ohio in almost every way and every program. Happy?

 

[Kickdown02]

I was one of those hippie musicians playing Athens back in the 70s. Good people. Mr. Magoo's. Good memories, except geez I sucked as a musician. That was a pretty cool time and Ohio University had a lot going for it. I think kids have a good experience there, so in that respect I agree with our newbie.

On the other hand, let's not fool ourselves. Even back then there was this "small man" chip on some folks shoulders down there about Ohio State. Whenever the objective evidence is put on the table, the latest edition of Baghdad Bob tells us how rankings don't count. Then, in the next breath, and let's not convict our newbie of something he did not say, we get this crap about the low academic standards at A&M.

Just the facts put on the table in the last few posts in this thread should be enough to provide anyone who spews such rubbish out of ignorance with enough evidence to stop it.

I think that the truth is that most folks on BP have a lot of respect for anyone who graduates from any of Ohio's state universities. I know I do. However, just because I think it is irrelevant to run about spouting how superior Ohio State is to the other universities, doesn't mean that I can't read the objective evidence and conclude that it is.

The point is: What is gained by Ohioans tearing down other Ohioans?

You claim to respect other Ohio schools, yet in your other post you bring up rankings. Which side are you going to play? A few of those links seem fishy, especially the World top 500. That web page looks like it was designed by an elementary school kid.

 

[Kickdown02]

But needless to say I know I will be rooting for Ohio to beat Ohio State. And then will be rooting for Ohio State to kick the shit out of USC the next week

I will be doing the same thing. By the way, I'm guessing that I am the OU alum you referred to on Bobcatattack.com for linking their threads. No hard feelings. :)

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

A few of those links seem fishy, especially the World top 500. That web page looks like it was designed by an elementary school kid.

No shit. Looks like an "HTML 101" homework project.

Some of the schools listed look way out of place. Stanford is the #2 university on the entire planet? GTFOH. Washington and Wisconsin are #16 and #17 and are ranked higher than any foreign univeristy in the entire world other than Cambridge and Oxford? Here's another GTFOH...

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

While I won't tear down other Ohioans, I have no problems tearing down certain Ohio colleges that have actively worked behind the scenes to weaken and disparage Ohio State. With their vain actions in the 1960s of trying to reclaim a past that never existed in the first place by weakening and holding back Ohio State, those institutions made it very clear that we're not all in this together.

As for the rankings Steve posted, anyone who's aware of Steve's day job knows quite well that he is very well qualified to speak to world university rankings.

 

[OZoner]

Considering none of us in school were alive when these actions you speak of occurred, perhaps it's time to let go.

And again, the very idea of comparing universities, especially on a world basis, is pretty pointless. The British approach to university education is quite different than the American approach. How can you compare them? For the sake of the argument, Washington Monthly has a different methodology and their results are pretty interesting; the Ivys don't do too well.

 

[BuckTwenty]

World Top 500:
Ohio State #61, University of Cape Town #201, Ohio Univerity unranked.
Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2007

This is a bit off topic, but according to that one, ALL 11 Big Ten schools are ranked in their top 100. How about a round of applause for that statistic? Beat that SEC!!

17 Univ of Wisconsin - Madison
21 Univ of scUM - The Whore
26 Univ of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
29 Northwestern Univ
33 Univ of Minnesota - Twin Cities
43 Penn State Univ - University Park
61 THE Ohio State Univ - Columbus
68 Purdue Univ - West Lafayette
80 Michigan State Univ
90 Indiana Univ - Bloomington
97 Univ of Iowa

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

The one ranking by the Chinese university is actually fairly well respected. The Economist magazine makes frequent reference to it. It is, however, highly influenced by science and engineering.

The underlying reality here is that we're not just talking about one or two rankings that find Ohio State above OU. We're talking about everything. USN&WR (both overall as well as individual college and and department rankings in everything from astronomy to history to zoology)...the Lombardi Center...the Washington Monthly...the numerous attempts at ranking world universities. Could they all be so wrong?

We can also look at factors such as Association of American Universities membership, Carnegie Endowment Classifications, factors of faculty quality such as National Academy members and Guggenheim Fellows, annual research rankings and so on

We can look at the wide disparity in admissions standards. Yes, I know that there was a period from the sixties to the mid eighties where anybody who could get into OU could also get into Ohio State, but those days are long gone and were also the result of the state forcibly dumbing down Ohio State's admissions policies. Once those restraints were removed, the gap between Ohio State and OU became large and is continuing to grow.

Now, I'm sure that OU does some things very well, and its students get a good education, but to believe that it is in any way (undergraduate, graduate, faculty or research) Ohio State's peer is absolutely delusional. And despite some of the comments on the bobcatattack thread, nobody here is pretending that Ohio State is Harvard or Yale. One, however, can quite reasonably argue that the gap between Ohio State looking up at Harvard or Yale is a lot smaller than the gap between Ohio State looking down at OU.

I'll say it again, the difference between Ohio State and the the other 12 public universities in Ohio is not merely one of size but more fundamentally one of quality.

 

[Steve19]

A couple of points for Ozoner. First, rankings are as good as the criteria they use. The Times Higher Education rankings are the golden standard worldwide and are valued and quoted by universities worldwide.

You'll also see that the World Rankings maintained at Shanghai Jaiotao get a lot of respect by universities worldwide, HTML amateurism aside.

As Mili points out, the use of a few criteria to rank universities can lead to some surprising results. That said, Stanford typically places in the top 10 of surveys. TSUN also is highly regarded, despite our prejudices against them on BP! Big Ten schools are among the best universities in the world, especially in the sciences and especially engineering.

Kickdown, sorry but I miss your point. It is entirely possible for me to respect grads of state universities in Ohio and to recognize that Ohio State is operating at the level of world premier universities. As I said, at the undergrad level, the output of the top 200 universities in America can be pretty close, provided that the students in lower-tier schools are making up for less skilled professors by reading their books and taking advantage of all learning resources available.

Let us remember that the recent posts in this thread are in response to the silly posts on the Ohio University fan site. In part, we have been responding to the astounding statements that the quality of an Ohio State degree is somehow lower than that of Ohio University.

In that vein, I posted some rankings that enjoy some support worldwide. You may disagree with one ranking criteria or another, but when one university doesn't make it onto any list and another is on every list and respectably ranked, it's hard to argue that the quality of education is comparable between the two institutions.

Furthermore, it is ludicrous to suggest that the unranked school is producing better graduates than the ranked school, especially given the size and resource disparities between them.

My intention is not to show disrespect. It is to provide objective information so that the people making such ill-informed statements about Ohio State can get their facts straight and stop embarrassing themselves.

As ORD intimated, I am involved in higher education as a business school professor and serve on various management committees and boards of professional organizations in my discipline in the US, Europe, and Africa.

 

[Steve19]

The one ranking by the Chinese university is actually fairly well respected. The Economist magazine makes frequent reference to it. It is, however, highly influenced by science and engineering.

The underlying reality here is that we're not just talking about one or two rankings that find Ohio State above OU. We're talking about everything. USN&WR (both overall as well as individual college and and department rankings in everything from astronomy to history to zoology)...the Lombardi Center...the Washington Monthly...the numerous attempts at ranking world universities. Could they all be so wrong?

We can also look at factors such as Association of American Universities membership, Carnegie Endowment Classifications, factors of faculty quality such as National Academy members and Guggenheim Fellows, annual research rankings and so on

We can look at the wide disparity in admissions standards. Yes, I know that there was a period from the sixties to the mid eighties where anybody who could get into OU could also get into Ohio State, but those days are long gone and were also the result of the state forcibly dumbing down Ohio State's admissions policies. Once those restraints were removed, the gap between Ohio State and OU became large and is continuing to grow.

Now, I'm sure that OU does some things very well, and its students get a good education, but to believe that it is in any way (undergraduate, graduate, faculty or research) Ohio State's peer is absolutely delusional. And despite some of the comments on the bobcatattack thread, nobody here is pretending that Ohio State is Harvard or Yale. One, however, can quite reasonably argue that the gap between Ohio State looking up at Harvard or Yale is a lot smaller than the gap between Ohio State looking down at OU.

I'll say it again, the difference between Ohio State and the the other 12 public universities in Ohio is not merely one of size but more fundamentally one of quality.

If you look more closely at rankings, you will see that Ohio State's rankings typically are less than they might be because of the historically lower graduation rates. All large public universities suffer from this and Ohio State was seriously hurt by the state enforced admission criteria back in the 80s. The quality of this year's freshman class is nearly equal to that of any top ranked program.

That gap you point out could be closing between Ohio State and the Ivy League.

 

[Steve19]

Considering none of us in school were alive when these actions you speak of occurred, perhaps it's time to let go.

And again, the very idea of comparing universities, especially on a world basis, is pretty pointless. The British approach to university education is quite different than the American approach. How can you compare them? For the sake of the argument, Washington Monthly has a different methodology and their results are pretty interesting; the Ivys don't do too well.

A final point, Ozoner. Higher education is globalizing very quickly. The increasing quality of Chinese business schools has had a major adverse effect on applications to attend leading business schools in the US. 35% of the classes at leading African business schools are filled by Americans and Europeans and, yes, they had to get that GMAT score to get in there as well. Nontraditional competition is heating up. The University of Phoenix has more than 150,000 students online. Schools are competing everywhere now.

Don't fool yourself, global rankings are incredibly important.